Heavy truths

I’ve got a friend on Twitter who every morning tweets, “Jesus is alive. And that changes everything about today.” That’s truth and that’s a heavy truth and we have to deal with it in a very serious way.

I had another friend a few years ago who was dealing with a doctor’s report that said he only had about six months to live. That’s a pretty heavy truth too. When I shared about my friend David who loved Jesus a lot with the Blonde she said, “That would be kind of creepy to only know you had that limited amount of time left in your life.” I get what she is saying but at the same time I wonder if that knowledge would be liberating. If I knew Jesus was coming back today, I might skip making the X1 payment and I might take that money and buy everyone’s lunch at Dairy Queen. Does that make sense?

James 4:14 tells us our lives are a mist. Here in the morning but gone by the afternoon. Wow Ken, thanks for pumping me up!

I think “re-gifting” is a sin (not really but let’s not do it anyway). The only thing we should re-gift is our day. If we wake up tomorrow, before our feet hit the floor and before that first cup of Peet’s French Roast in my favorite Postmasters Coffee Company coffee mug that I picked up on an East Texas mission trip, we need to say, “Lord, thank you for giving me this day. And Father, I want to give it back to you, please redeem it for your glory.” That's the idea behind what James was saying - we need to include God in our daily plans. Jesus is alive today and that ought to change our perspective about how we live out our days.

In First Thessalonians 5:16-22 God explains that His perfect will for our lives is that we are: Joyful, thankful, prayerful, that we do not quench the Spirit and we don’t hang out with sin. That sounds good and that’s truth and we have to reconcile that truth with our attitude and actions today. But then I hear the words of Jesus telling me to go (Matthew 28:19 & 20) next door and tell our neighbor Jesus is alive. If the mist that I call my life was going to be over in six months I would go next door today. I think we call this urgency. Shouldn’t we treat the Gospel with urgency, and can’t we go in joy, with gratitude and a prayerfulness? What if our neighbor only has six months to live?

I woke up to Psalm 127 today, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.” Most people need to call their contractor and stop the construction. We need to fire the builder and hire Jesus if you know what I mean. What’s His blueprint for today? We tend to think in terms of, “What is God’s plan for our lives?” I don’t know about you but that’s too big of an idea for me to wrap my mind around. But I think I can figure out His plan for my day. See, it doesn’t matter how long we have to live, Jesus is alive and that changes everything. We may not like the truth, but we have to deal with it.

He told me to tell you that.